Soft Box vs Beauty Dish, Which is Better For Portraits?

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Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens we’re going to take a look at a beauty dish versus a softbox. Can you tell the difference? Which one looks better? Which one’s softer? Which one’s going to give us better light on Devin’s face here as we photograph her. I got Devin here with us today. So we’re going to compare a beauty dish to a softbox. I think you’re going to be surprised with the outcome. You’ll decide which one you like better. Let’s get to it.

So let’s look at a softbox versus a beauty dish. We’re going to start with a 1×2 softbox. So it’s pretty much the same size as a 24 inch beauty dish. It gives us that same across distance, not quite, it’s not round obviously. So it doesn’t fill in that way. But it gives us a really good comparison of a modifier of similar size, that small size. How that softbox is going to compare with the beauty dish. I can make a pretty good argument for both of them. So let’s look at them. We’re going to get nice light out of each of them. But let’s see which one you think works best for you. And let’s just compare them.

So really quickly I wanted to talk about distance to subject because I’m running this about 3 feet, maybe a little less. Maybe 2 and 1/2 feet. I believe that any kind of a modifier on a portrait, if you get much further than 3 feet, it starts to just lose its quality almost completely. So if we take an image right here at 3 feet we get a nice image. If I move this back 6 feet on the same angle of view up high it’s going to just start to become a little more directional. It’s going to become kind of, it just loses all of its power and quality. You’ve got to get these in close. Work in that 3 foot kind of direction. When I see someone set up a portrait and they’ve got their key light out here about six or seven feet, I’m going, oh my word, that’s just, it’s not doing what a modifier wants to do. It really, that at that point just becomes a distant hard source. So get in close. Keep it in close and that’s what we’ll do on into these comparisons. It’ll help give us a beautiful portrait when we’re done.

So we’re using the new FJ400 II. It’s got a slim kind of really nice sleek look. Thinner battery on the back. And it also has a touchscreen, beautiful touchscreen. It’s very similar to the FJ80 or FJ80 SE. So it has that touchscreen interface. Very simple to use. Easy to set up. I think very quick. It’s a nice Improvement. So there’s the FJ400II. So let’s look at these two modifiers with just open face, no cover on the front, no interior baffle. Nothing but that silver reflector of that silver interior for the softbox and the beauty dish. And we get a hard directional light straight at the person. Straight at Devin right at her face. Let’s take a look at those two shooting that way and see how they compare.

So there’s a look at the open face beauty dish versus the open face softbox. Now I did shoot a horizontal and a vertical with the softbox. And I do get a slight vignette on her body with the horizontal. When I turn it to vertical it opens up the body just a little bit. But look at the difference on the neck. You see a really hard shadow on that neck. That really gives you a deep line on the neck. And there’s no transition in that shadow at all. I mean, these are, all of these are the transition is very, very fast. Which means it’s a more hard direct light. But the transition, but the shadow is larger with that softbox because it just doesn’t see around as much. Whereas you look at the beauty dish and on the beauty dish that shadow is pulled right up underneath the chin. It’s much shorter. Which is really interesting because they’re very similar in size. But in some ways that beauty dish is bouncing around and opening up her neck and giving us a much nicer shadow. So let’s put the inserts in now. The insert in the beauty dish and we’ll put an insert in the front of this soft box as well. And just take a look at what that does to the light. One thing we can notice is look at the background. That softbox opens up the background just a little bit more than the beauty dish does. Obviously the horizontal is opening up the background a little more than the vertical is. So just a little difference.

Now these could really be feathered and you could really start to paint with them. That would change the look a lot. I’m trying to keep them in the same area looking at her, at Devin from the same point so we get a good comparison.

All right, now I’m going to move on to the next comparison. We’re going to put the beauty dish, the insert, this goes really close to the flash tube right back towards the back of the beauty dish. So this flash tube was hitting. This is no longer directional. It hits this, bounces into the beauty dish and gives us a softer light. On the softbox you put in an insert. This insert is pretty big. It’s really up close to the front of the box on this 1X2 and this is going to now give us an extra layer of softening as it goes out. So let’s see how those two compare with the interior baffles in.

So the first thing I noticed is we lose about a third of a stop, maybe closer to a half. But we’re in third increments. So I’m going to go up a third. I’m going to take a shot there. So there’s the insert for the softbox. We’re already starting to get a better transition on the face. We’re seeing a nicer transition from highlight to shadow. It’s a little softer. It doesn’t happen quite so quick. We’re also seeing the shadow on the neck is softening. It’s starting to make a nicer transition there. So it’s not quite so directional looking. So it’s much nicer. So that insert really helped the softbox. It looks a lot nicer. I’ll do one horizontal just for fun to see what that looks like, see what that does to the background. And looking right here. There you go, yeah. When I go horizontal with that soft box it really opens up the background. The background becomes a little brighter behind her. But it vignettes off just a little bit on the front of her. I like the way it vignettes a little bit on the bottom. So it’s kind of nice. I would probably use this even though it’s a vertical portrait. I would probably use it horizontal because I want it to fall off on her body and just give us a nice bright face. And the shadow on her neck is just softer. It’s not a hard line. It’s starting to blend. It’s starting to transition much nicer. It looks a lot nicer.

(We used the Tamron 90mm Macro Lens for the portraits.)

Let’s take a look at that beauty dish. So there’s the beauty dish with that insert in. It is interesting what it does because it does bring the shadow up pretty tight underneath her chin. But it just, it gives us a nice beautiful transition. We see a nice glow in the skin. I mean, beauty dish is really meant to be able to show you, really make your skin and your face pop. So it looks so pretty. What it does do that’s interesting to me is that shadow is still pretty chiseled underneath her chin. It’s not softened out very much with that beauty dish. Which is one of the the features, that’s one of the qualities of that beauty dish. It is not a super soft light, not in this situation. When you just have the insert in you got to put the cover on the front in order to soften it. But it’s given, it’s still a little more directional than the softbox. The softbox is a little softer with that baffle in because that baffle is kind of or that insert is kind of acting just like a cover on the front of the softbox, doing a lot of similar kinds of things. I like the the brightness and the glow that a beauty dish gives you on the face. And I see it in this image.

So there’s those two together. There’s the soft box with the insert and there’s the beauty dish with the insert. You know, which one of those do you like better? The beauty dish is also about a third of a stop brighter than the softbox is with the insert. So the beauty dish with that kind of, the metal plate in there is bouncing the light. But it’s brighter and the background falls out. It still falls out very quickly because you got that, the exposure is on her face and it’s not wrapping very much. It just really keeps the background pretty dark. Whereas with the softbox the background is a little brighter. So we gain more light with the beauty dish.

Now let’s stick on the front cover. Let’s look at these two compared to each other with that front cover in place. So I now have the front cover on the beauty dish. We’ve got the metal insert in the beauty dish and it’s the silver lined beauty dish. And we’ve lost with that front cover. We lose two stops of light. So I’m all the way, I opened up to f/4.5. I was at f/9 before. So that makes a huge difference. And if you look at the background, look at the background, what it’s done. You have the background now is becoming a little brighter. As I have to open up my exposure I’m seeing a stronger light on the background. And when I get her face the right exposure the background has become a little brighter, a little grayer. This is where most people use these beauty dishes. They use them with this front cover on because it does give you a soft light. If you look at the light underneath her chin it’s a nice soft transition. If we put a card in there it would look really beautiful. That’ll just open up all those shadows so it looks wonderful on the face. But the background is pretty bright now. I would start to feather this. I would probably feather this really hard down so that background start to fall off. But we’re not going to do that right now because we’re going to take a look at the softbox with the front cover and the insert in.

So there’s the softbox with both the cover and the inside insert. It’s very soft. We see a softer transition on her chin. The beauty dish was not as soft. It’s a little more chiseled. So that softbox is a little softer transition now. I’ve got, this is vertical. I can go horizontal. That’s going to, it’s going to take a lot of light off from her body down there. Get a quick shot at that, nice smile. There, so now that, yeah it really, it vignettes a little bit. Not very much but just a little bit. The one thing that does do is it, I didn’t open up two stops for this. I opened up a stop and 2/3. So with the beauty dish, when you put the cover on the front I lost two stops. When I put the front cover on the soft box I lost a stop and 2/3. So it’s a little more efficient. It’s very similar. It’s a little more efficient. It gives us a little more light. The background is also a little brighter on both of these. It just, both the beauty dish and the softbox the background comes up. But now I’m going to vignette. I’m going to feather this just a little bit. I should be able to keep my nice light on her face. Nice smile, there, yep. I can see that nice light on her face but the background starts to fall off as I feather it down. Either of these modifiers, if you feather it down, it’s going to take it off from the background. You feather it up it’s going to put it on the background. This is also a great thing if you feather it down. Now you slide a card in there. Let’s just look at that really fast. Just look how beautiful this is on her face. Look how beautiful that is. It just changes everything. It opens up the shadows. It just has a beautiful glow to it. This is really an optimal point for this softbox.

So let’s take a look at these two. Here’s the beauty dish with the reflector in place. Again it’s just beautiful. It opens things up. It just looks so wonderful.That shadow below her neck is kind of almost gone at that point with that reflector. This is a large reflector. Which I really love something it’ll just really push all the light back into her face and that makes it really soft and beautiful. Let’s take a look at these two side by side. There’s the soft box with the cover and the insert and the reflector. And there’s the beauty dish with the insert, the cover and the reflector. Both beautiful lights. Which one of those do you like the best?

So I’m going to shoot a bunch of images with the softbox and I’m going to shoot a bunch with the beauty dish and we’re going to mix those up and play them. You tell me if you can tell which ones are which.

So let’s wrap this up. First off, Devin, which one do you like better, softbox or beauty dish? “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the pictures yet.” I haven’t shown her anything yet. She wouldn’t know. You know what, I was confused by this. I shouldn’t say confused, but it was interesting to me. I felt like we got really beautiful shots of Devin with both of them, softbox and the beauty dish. There were times when that shadow from the beauty dish was a little harder underneath her chin but was definitely up higher. So it was a little softer. It wasn’t softer but it was up higher. It wasn’t as pronounced. Whereas with the softbox, that shadow fell a lot deeper, a lot lower. Which I did like that. I do love the fact that you have a round highlight in her eye versus a square. Of course you can fix that in Photoshop or Lightroom without any problem these days. But I love the round highlight in the eyes. It makes the eyes look a lot nicer to me. I think the beauty dish kind of shined a little bit. But you can make an argument for either of them. Put in the comments which one you think is best, which one looks the best. And you know, when you work hard with a modifier and get the light in the right place you can make some really beautiful images with just about anything. So you keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!